Olympus Stylus Epic

 I took my Olympus Stylus Epic on a daytrip to Cerrillos New Mexico recently.  

The film was some old Fuji X-tra 400 which I had found at the bottom of my refrigerator.  I think this is only the third time I have used the camera since I picked it up for three bucks at a local thrift store.  The first roll had shown that the camera was leaking light through the top edge of the back.  I stuffed some black yarn into the back, trying to stop up the leak, but that did not work.  This time, I resorted to a couple strips of black electrician's tape and that got the job done.

In trying to figure out how to best deal with the light leak I googled "mju2 light leaks" and found that the problem was quite a common complaint.  It appears the rubber seals on the back as well as that around the lens become dried out.  I saw some suggestions that a rubber-restoring product available in car parts stores might correct the problem.  I'm happy enough for now with the black tape fix.

If you want to acquire a Stylus Epic and are not lucky as I was to find one in a junk store,  they can typically be had for $300 to $400 on ebay.  I even saw one go for $700.  It is a handy little camera, but paying those prices seems insane.

Pushing the Boundary

I have mostly shot 100 speed film in my simple cameras.  With fixed focus, aperture and shutter speed, the box cameras and the point-and-shoots like the Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim confine the possibilities to a fairly narrow range of lighting.  The 100 speed films like Tmax and Kodak Gold have given me good results as long as I stick to something close to sunny day shooting.  Recently, I decided to try some faster Fuji Superia X-tra 400 color in my little ultra wide to allow the exploration of a broader range of lighting.

What I found was that I could make exposures two or three stops below what my meter recommended and still get good color.  However, the images resulting from such low light conditions allowed very limited enlargement.  Beyond about a 600-pixel width the grain starts to resemble baseballs.  Going in the other direction, though, both the color and the grain structure held up well past the film's rated sunny day limit.

Part of my inspiration to use the Fuji 400 film came from seeing some recent work in the Flickr vuws group by a fellow who calls himself UkrainianSensation.. His picture of the Golden Gate is really an extraordianary example of the capabilities of the little ultra wide.